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(CHICAGO) - A group in San Antonio called the Dinner Garden gets some of its funding from Exxon Mobil. Is this generosity?

If Exxon Mobil is doing this to support urban gardens in San Antonio (and elsewhere) for the sake of people's health, I'll eat my sombrero and cowboy hat. Exxon Mobil is, in fact, involved not only in genetic engineering but in its most extreme form yet - synthetic biology.

In synthetic biology, novel genetic material is designed on computers and then manufactured. This material is then inserted into living organisms to reconfigure them or is used to build completely new species from scratch."

A genetic technology policy campaigner for Friends of the Earth warns:

The deal .... poses substantial environmental and ethical risks.

“This announcement shows that Big Oil is deeply involved in the dangerous field of synthetic biology," Hoffman said. "We should heed lessons learned from the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon disasters and stop allowing oil companies that have repeatedly harmed our environment to continue taking excessive risks that endanger the public. But that is exactly what they’re doing by deploying this risky and underregulated technology."

Exxon Mobil is infamous for environmental destruction and for lying. So why is it supporting this gardening movement?

The Exxon-Valdez oil spill is by far ExxonMobil’s most well-known environmental offense, but it’s certainly not the only one. The oil giant was ranked sixth on the Toxic 100 list of US corporate air polluters, and has been accused by Greenpeace of sabotaging efforts to deal with climate change, manipulating peer-reviewed studies and misleading the public with junk science.....

In 2001, ExxonMobil was the target of a lawsuit by a human rights group that accused the company of actively abetting human rights abuses including torture, rape and killings in Indonesia. The suit alleged that ExxonMobil had hired a local army to protect its natural gas fields in the Aceh province, providing them with equipment to dig mass graves as well as building interrogation and torture centers. The company denied all of the charges, but a motion it filed to have the case dismissed was denied in 2006. The case is still pending.

A new study of children in the Washington, D.C., area and published in the journal Therapeutic Drug Monitoring links one form of childhood cancer to exposure to common organophosphate pesticides used around the home to kill bugs. Children with lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and their mothers were more likely to have higher levels of organophosphates and their metabolites in their urine than healthy pairs, and mothers who reported household use of chemicals were more likely to have children with ALL... [This is] the first evidence of a linkage in a non-agricultural setting, according to the study's authors, researchers from the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University.

ExxonMobil is a source of the solvents and carrier fluids used for these toxins.

"It's well known that children are more susceptible to the harmful effects of chemical exposure than adults. For one, their bodies are still developing rapidly, so chemicals can interfere with the normal growth of their brains and other organs, or disrupt their hormones at key developmental periods. For another, doses are likely to be disproportionately large, because their bodies are so much smaller than adults' and because their breathing rates are so much more rapid. Finally, their habits -- crawling on the floor, testing the world with their mouths and frequently putting their hands into their mouths dirty -- mean they are exposed to more toxic chemicals on the ground.

"Another recent study found that children are more susceptible to exposure to organophosphates because they lack an enzyme that helps adults break down the chemical.

"Organophosphate pesticides are insecticides that attack bugs' nervous systems. They are used on farms, and some are labeled for home use to kill or repel mosquitoes, ants, cockroaches and other household and garden pests."

The background on pesticides is one of intentional death.

"Related chemicals were originally developed as nerve gases during World War I, and may affect normal brain, reproductive and other body development (some chemicals may even make you fat). ....

ExxonMobil is the largest of the six multinational oil supermajors and one of the biggest energy companies worldwide, with operations spanning from oil exploration and production, oil refining, retail gas distribution, power generation, and chemical production. The company stems directly from John D. Rockfeller’s Standard Oil Company, merging with Mobil Oil in 1999 to become ExxonMobil. ExxonMobil also owns the international Esso brand.

[The Rockefellers developed genetically engineered seeds, which stem from eugenics. They are aggressively pushing their use worldwide, and as the power behind the pharmaceutical industry, are profiting financially from the harm they and the pesticides cause.]

ExxonMobil is now the second largest public company in the country, often swapping between the top position with Wal-Mart.

This behemoth of deadly poisons is an odd contributor to an urban gardening initiative.

The oil giant holds the all time world record for public company profitability after making $45.2 billion in profit in 2008, beating their own previous record. Combining the 2008 revenue of ExxonMobil and Chevron exceeded the GDP of all but 16 nations in the world. The first three quarters of 2010 brought the company just under $20 billion. ....

In putting giving seeds to people for food gardens, is the Dinner Garden group distributing GE-seeds that have been patented? Those seeds are "owned" by the corporations which has been suing anyone attempting to save them (as farmers have done with seeds since the beginning of agriculture). GE-seeds and the accompanying herbicides are associated with infertility, spontaneous abortions in animals, and with new pathogens, with a massive increase in diabetes, with shrunken organs, and more.